169 | 365 Candle in the Dark

As a teenager lighting and sound were my thing and I can remember attending a course with a renowned lighting designer for the performing arts, whose name alludes me.

At one point during the course we had to create mood for a tent scene on the stage using lighting effects and one single candle.

Having that one candle on the stage made the design difficult to say the least. In a pitch black theatre, where you literally can’t see your hand if it is an inch from your face, a candle is exceptionally bright. The light it generates can’t easily be softened or turned down. People sitting in close proximity of the candle were illuminated by its presence alone.

20 plus years on, I can still remember a lot that I learnt on that course, about how the eye works, about how we see black and white in the moonlight, about creative license, and about how bright a single candle can be.

Every now and then you meet people who are like candles in the dark. Every now and then I meet someone whose flame burns so brightly in the dark patches of this world that it lights up everyone around them.